Software Integration in the Development of Expert Design Tool for Organic Rankine Cycle

Abstract

The industry and scientific community are calling for a feasible, reliable and accessible tool to perform process design and performance assessment for organic Rankine cycle based heat resource analysis such as geothermal or waste heat during the early conceptual stage of design. In this article an online application, Expert Design Tool (EDT), with expertise for equipment selection and performance assessment is proposed. The aim of developing the EDT is to set up an online engineering tool to aid engineers and researchers in carrying out preliminary design exercises and performance evaluation for energy conversion into electricity using organic Rankine cycle (ORC) systems.
Firstly, the status quo of ORC design tool is discussed and EDT architecture, working principle and developing procedure are examined in detail. Secondly, the development of online EDT is associated with different software. The ORC component models are built in Python language and the fluid properties are obtained from CoolProp database. In addition, the Flask software is utilized to build the web framework and HTML/CSS and JavaScript are used for building user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI). Consequently, software integration into online environment is explored as a central task. The EDT is feasible for different level users who do not have to possess specific background knowledge or install any specific software. The online deployment and commissioning of EDT will be beneficial to the development of low-grade thermal energy applications based on ORC technology.